[Leica] Re Old Stuff

[lrzeitlin at aol.com]

 Jim,
	It is good to see that another old timer recognizes the wonders of the slide rule. When you used a slide rule you had to partially solve the problem in your head. The slide rule simply gave you the mantissa, the significant figures, not the exponent. So you had to have some idea of the magnitude of the answer. Thus .03 and 300 look alike. The learned ability to estimate the magnitude of an answer is lost with most modern computing methods. I often got absurd answers from many of my students who used the latest electronic calculators. 
	The slide rule is still the best tool for figuring out proportions. A circular slide rule was awkward to carry but it never went off the scale and the length was far greater than the physical dimension. A 6 inch circular rule is equivalent to an 18 inch linear one. It could be easily read to three significant figures and a fourth figure could be estimated. I believe that a number of pilots still use E6B circular slide rules, reddubbed as “Aviation Flight Computers.” Again, no batteries needed.
	As I said there is a lot of other stuff interred in the bottom drawers, including 8, yes 8, Leicas ranging from a IIIb to a pair of M3s, an old digital Leica (rebadged from a Fuji), a Russian imitation of a Nazi Luftwaffe Leica. a 1927 Leica 1 and a CL. I’m not a collector, just a pack rat. I bought cheap stuff, Leicas, Robots, Contaxes and Minoxes from old camera stores and put them back in working condition, although I had the M3s CLAd by Sherri Krauter. But as I said in a long ago post my kids will probably discard all the antique cameras, wondering what the old man did with all that mechanical junk when all photography is digital. 
	I confess that I gave into the siren song of electronics by buying one of the first HP 35 calculators for the outrageous sum of $395. It was replaced with an HP 45 and then an HP 65. All at ever lowering prices. A couple of years ago I bought a half dozen Chinese made calculators with far more capability than the HP models. They cost $1 each. I can afford to throw them away when the batteries die. Digital photography seems to be following the same route.
	Larry Z